Week one update: on listening

I’ve been told many times that music is 90% listening and 10% playing. Well as much as I hate anecdotes, that little nugget of old-timey wisdom has become truer and truer over the years.

Our first few days in the studio have been fast-paced as we rehearse, arrange and record demos. This is where the listening comes in. A song that feels more or less complete in rehearsal can be far from finished when you hear it back. Other songs arrive with all the pieces in a neat little package. You won’t know until you listen, and listen a lot. I for one like to listen to demos tens or hundreds of times, which is pretty torturous to be honest, but it makes you a better player, and it helps you understand what’s working with the arrangements, why it’s working, what’s not working, and how it should be working.

In our first four days we’ve finished a whole bunch of demos, and now we get to listen to them until we hate them, and figure out why that is. So that’s what we’re doing. More updates coming soon.